Sunday, July 8, 2012

They Called Them Ogres...

Yesterday, I took my son to Brick Fiesta 2012, the Texas Lego Enthusiasts' Convention, which was held in Houston this year. It was mind-blowingly cool.

Not surprisingly, there was a bit of gamer geek overlap, both in the crowd (I saw this t-shirt) and among the participants themselves. One guy had about a dozen home-built Battletech mechs, ranging from the small ones up to an Atlas. Another guy had two different versions of an Ogre Mk V: a display model (about a foot long) and a minis-scale one (about three inches).

When I geeked out over them, The Boy asked, "What's an Ogre?" Which led me to realize I needed to shore up a mighty gap in his education. How could I have missed it? The boy loves giant robotic death machines. He likes things that go boom. Ogre is so firmly in his wheelhouse, I don't know why I never thought to show it to him before.

Probably because I had to root around in the garage to find my copy (still in its little plastic case).

Anyway, today I taught him how to play (of course, he got the Ogre). Between poor howitzer placement and the worst die rolls in the history of mankind, he pretty well skunked me. I managed to take out his main battery and one secondary. He successfully used both missiles and lost a whole two tread boxes when he ran over one of my tanks.

Of course, it's like my wife said, "You know better than to ever give him a giant robot ANYTHING."﻿

(There may be a new ICONS character later tonight, but probably not. I've got another ICONS-related post rattling around in my head that I want to write soon.)